Today, many construction materials come in the form of substantially planar panels or rolls which are unrollable into, essentially, planar panels. The construction materials are, in both cases, secured with appropriate fasteners and/or adhesives to the framing members, sheathing and/or decking of building walls, floors, ceilings and roofs. Such construction materials comprise, without limitation: (a) drywall, gypsum board, plasterboard, cement board, greenboard, blueboard, wood, and foam board for use in forming interior, and in some cases exterior, building walls and/or ceilings; (b) felt paper, underlayments, membranes, wraps, and other similar materials that are generally applied to sheathing and/or decking to protect underlying building materials from the effects of weather, to reduce the amount of air and/or moisture infiltration through a building's structure, and/or to provide insulation against heat and sound transmission; and (c) other similar construction materials. The term “wallboard” is used herein to mean and refer, collectively, to such construction materials.
When individual panels or unrolled rolls of such wallboard are positioned side-by-side in/on a building structure as is often the case, the panels or unrolled rolls define gaps, seams or joints therebetween and are joined together with tape, sealant, filler and/or adhesive substances to form a monolithic structure. The tape may be manufactured from paper, fiberglass, or other material, be woven or non-woven, and be or not be backed with an adhesive substance. The tape is, generally, applied over the gaps, seams or joints either by hand or through use of a taping tool. The sealant, filler and/or adhesive substances may include, but not be limited to, drywall compound, glue, caulk, resin, epoxy, and other similar substances that are collectively referred to herein by the term “mastic”. The tape and mastic may be used alone or in combination to seal, fill and/or hide the gaps, seams or joints and secure the individual panels or unrolled rolls together. When the tape and mastic are used in combination to hide a joint between pieces of wallboard, the mastic aids in securing the tape to the wallboard while being featherable away from the joint to cause the joint and tape to blend in and provide a smooth, substantially level surface with the wallboard to either side of the joint.
To apply, screed, smooth and/or feather the mastic relative to a gap, seam, joint, and/or tape, an appropriate finishing tool is selected and used based, at least, on the particular wallboard product, tape, and/or mastic being employed, and the location and orientation of the gap, seam or joint. In situations where the wallboard on both sides of a gap, seam or joint therebetween substantially defines a single plane, a finishing tool known as a “finisher” is often used to quickly apply a thin, uniform layer of mastic over tape covering the gap, seam or joint. The finisher generally comprises a partial enclosure defining a variable geometry cavity therein for holding the mastic to be applied over the tape. The partial enclosure may be supplied with mastic on a continual basis via a connected pump or may be manually loaded with mastic on an as needed basis by a user. The partial enclosure has a hingedly mounted pressure plate that is biased by one or more biasing members relative to the remainder of the partial enclosure so as to continually attempt to return the pressure plate to a retracted position and stop the flow of mastic from the partial enclosure via an opening therein. The pressure plate connects to a handle used by a user to hold the finisher in contact with wallboard and over tape covering a joint. By exerting a desired amount of pressure to the pressure plate via the handle and moving the finisher longitudinally over the joint, a user may partially overcome the forces exerted by the biasing members and apply a correspondingly desired amount of mastic over the tape and joint while feathering the mastic laterally away from the joint.
In a finisher system of at least one manufacturer, the back of the finisher's pressure plate has an opposed pair of fasteners and captive wing nuts secured thereto and the handle has an adapter affixed to an end thereof such that the adapter (and, hence, the handle) is attached to the back of the pressure plate via the fasteners and wing nuts. More specifically, the adapter has a connector plate defining a pair of opposed slots that are appropriately sized and spaced apart to respectively receive the fasteners and wing nuts. To attach the adapter to the back of the finisher's pressure plate, the adapter's connector plate is first placed adjacent to and in contact with the back of the finisher's pressure plate. The connector plate is then slid relative to and against the back of the pressure plate until each of the slots receives a fastener. The wing nuts are then tightened against the connector plate to hold the connector plate and pressure plate together.
Unfortunately, if a wing nut is not tightened sufficiently, the corresponding fastener may slide partially or entirely out of its respective connector plate slot during use of the finisher, thereby allowing the connector plate to slide at least partially free from the pressure plate at a possibly inopportune time and creating potentially disastrous consequences. To avoid such an undesired event, many users commonly use a hammer to strike the wing nuts and insure that the wing nuts are sufficiently tight to hold the connector plate and pressure plate together. Striking the wing nuts with a hammer tends to damage the wing nuts and could, ultimately, render the finisher's pressure plate unsecurable to the adapter's connector plate.
Therefore, there is a need in the industry for a finisher system that securely attaches to a handle therefor with ease, and that may address other problems, difficulties, and/or shortcomings of current technology that may or may not be described herein.